At 4 cans a day I'd be less worried about the caffeine and more worried about the sugar. Truthfully the caffeine in 4 cans of coca-cola is less than one good Starbucks coffee.
Thanks for the pictures. That helps. The top part looks pretty normal for an espresso machine. Grinds should not be finer than those holes. The bottom filter is probably there to help increase the pressure of the espresso pull. My machine only has the top filter which pushes through to the spout directly. I think some machines use an additional filter to help compensate for poor grind consistency. Some call it the crema-valve. But that said, I think your grinds may be too fine. Turkish grind would clog up anything.
As I mentioned earlier, using the decalcifying stuff should help get the crap out easier if its hard to get out.
The vitamix is awesome. I have a blendtec and debated back and forth about which to get but went with the blendtec because it fit under cabinets for my kitchen. Anyway, blenders can surely grind coffee, but they wont give you consistency because they're blades and you'd have to really guess at how fine the grinds are. A proper conical burr grinder will consistently grind at a fixed grind size and should give you a very controlled experience. You still have to dial that in through a little trial and error (for each bean!) but it's a lot more effective for grinding to something that is very sensitive like an espresso machine.
Ya, haha, I don't have an actual coffee grinder. But ya, the Vitamix is overkill. To tell you the truth I kind of have given up, but really only because of fear of getting those small grinds into that center chamber. And I think you can see that IT is a little different than other machines.
In the 1970s the popular thing was when people would go into antique shops and find manual coffee grinders. They would never use them but put them in the living room, just to look at them for the art they were.
The grinders are a cool past part of this culture.IMO
Well, until my business is up and running successfully I'm on a tight budget.
I use the finest beans (my) money can buy, a Porlex hand grinder and an Aeropress. Google it if you don't know what it is; it's awesome and can make coffee more like espresso (I can get some crema too) or more like filter coffee, depending on dose, grind, etc.
A complete home coffee-making solution for around $60, and it's very portable too if I want to take it with me when travelling
Having said that, as soon as I've had enough success in the business to merit 'treating' myself, I'll be straight out to buy a high quality espresso machine (Rocket brand, maybe?) and a premium grinder (Mazzer Mini or similar)
I watched the Jazz video and the Defqon1 video.
Not my genres at all, but I maintain an open mind along with the belief that if music is good, then it's good, regardless of genre.
I could appreciate both of them, so thanks for expanding my horizons a little bit further today.
Generally, I'd say I like most genres of music except for jazz, dance music and metal.
But there's exceptions in all 3, especially metal.
I usually say I like rock and hard rock, but not metal. And my rough formula for differentiating the two is:
"If you can understand at least some of the vocals and make out at least some kind of tune, then it's rock.
If not, then it's metal"
NB: I know this is hopelessly inaccurate, before I get flamed. It amuses me though, so that's ok :tongue_smile:
For me, my twice-daily coffee is a time to chill out and refocus. So I'm more likely to be listening to acoustic music, but certainly rock, pop and hip-hop have been known to make an occasional guest appearance
When I was 18 I completely surrounded myself with different music. How can you learn what you like if you don't explore right? Some music is universally liked at the start and some is an acquired taste.
But still I think it's best not to over-concentrate on genres. What life does in general is show you music. If you travel you get exposed to the worlds music. Still even if you don't travel there has never been a more easy tool than the Internet for learning of music.
In late 1979 a band came out called the B52s. They were very silly and almost stupid. Actually they were stupid. Still that was the era, we had just gone passed the whole 1970s and much of the music was very serious.
So new wave was to be off the cuff, new wave was to be serendipity of sorts. But still the thing with modern music is it's a trick in a way. The process of modern music for teenagers is for the 20 year-olds to find a past genre and injest it. They then bring it to market as something totally new and the 16-19 year olds think it's genius and buy it. That's the nativity of youth and why not knowing everything at a young age is totally entertaining and cool.
I stopped listening to the B52s until the other day when I listened to Mesopotamia. The second song they completely copied Les Baxter. I didn't learn about Les Baxter till 15 years later than when I heard Mesopotamia.
But the B52s knew of Les Baxter. And all this time, I thought they were pure genius?
If you read through the thread, you can learn of my experiences with caffeine pills. I learned that they did not work at all for me. I need the other ingredients in the soda and energy drinks to get high. The caffeine alone isn't enough for me, and combined with the other stuff in the pills, it was just a disaster.
What do they put in hazelnut coffee to make it taste so different? They were out of the classic medeum roast this morning so I ended up with hazelnut, but the taste is very different from traditional black coffee. It's not bad though, I can still drink it.
In late 1979 a band came out called the B52s. They were very silly and almost stupid. Actually they were stupid. Still that was the era, we had just gone passed the whole 1970s and much of the music was very serious.
Their album "Cosmic Thing" (late 80's? Early 90's?) was one of the soundtracks to a particular teenage summer (NB: I may not have been listening to it in the year it originally was released!).
But I liked it then and still like it now; in fact, I just put a 24-192 FLAC version of it on my music player last week
Interesting thing is that for me, if I like a band/song once, I like it forever. My tastes grow and develop, but I never stop liking the things I liked previously.
I guess my favourite song by the B-52's (and on that album) is "Deadbeat Club". Wonderful summer-soaked feel-good music!
I cannot, however, comment on their originality or possible lack thereof.
Every band have their influences, and sometimes even blatant pastiches. Many of them feel embarrassed about them in later years, others don't mind.
But many of them also manage to bring something new to the table, and it'd be a brave man to bet against the B-52's having never achieved that
Well, I mentioned Mazzer Mini as it's one of the more well-known premium grinders. Basically, once I can afford it, I'll do some thorough research and buy accordingly
But you've got a good set up right there, and a good plan for future upgrades too
Sure, I was just joking about the metal thing lol. There's great stuff in the genre.
I know what you mean about not thinking of it in terms of rock. The vast number of contemporary metal sub-genres alone should propel it into its own unique genre.
I guess some of the stuff which was called 'metal' back in the day (Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath etc) are relatively 'tame' in comparison to today's metal and hence have been assimilated into the 'classic rock' genre.
Having said that, I defy anyone to listen to Iron Maiden's "Hallowed Be Thy Name" and not be seriously impressed. Terrific and inventive guitar work, tight band, powerful and gifted vocalist.
Sounds almost like classical music in terms of its composition!
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